


And I don't want to go home yet

by Age or Wizardry (ageorwizardry)



Series: Diptych (Old-Fashioned Hat) [2]
Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 07:45:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18220241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageorwizardry/pseuds/Age%20or%20Wizardry
Summary: It's a sad song; it's a tragedy.





	And I don't want to go home yet

Orpheus plays their song on the jukebox, and Eurydice comes running. Running, a shade up out of the depths—she can never truly live again, but Hades' contracts, complex and crafted, have loopholes. Nothing that means you can win anything from him, oh no—just tiny cracks, _just_ big enough to allow the desperate to trade even more than they can afford, in exchange for nothing worth the sacrifice.

So, this: she can leave Hadestown, but not really, only as a shade. Never when Orpheus sings with his own voice, or plays music with his own hands. She can never see his face, and he can never see her at all.

She takes it and runs.

She finds him in front of the jukebox, hunched over it, as the first strains of "their song" play. In life Orpheus sang it himself as they danced together in the summer fields, in their tiny kitchen, wherever the joy of being together overtook them. But now her shade can only stay in the world if she hears it in another's voice—Orpheus's voice will send her straight home.

He leans over the jukebox, head low, hair straggling, hands gripping the edges as if it is the only thing holding him up, knee shaking in time with the music. People are looking at him, then looking away from him. They cannot see her at all.

Eurydice is looking at him. Filling her eyes with him as hungrily as she once did when it was the only hope she had of ever coming back to the bright, living world. There is no hope now. She'll always be hungry.

She wants everything, all at once, impossibly: to keep his whole body in her sight like this; to approach close enough to reach out to touch; to press so close all she can see is the small patch of skin directly before her eyes. Her existence is a story of not getting what she wants, so she picks her privation like a glass of wine: which kind will she taste tonight?

She approaches him on slow, silent footsteps, softly presses herself against him: his back to her belly, thighs against thighs. Her face comes to rest against his shoulder.

Orpheus gasps to feel her there and he starts to move to the music with her, in more of a shudder than a sway. Eurydice knows his eyes will be clenched shut tight to hold her there. Her hands creep forward over his stomach, and Orpheus clutches them close, feeling her fingers as though trying to read secrets there with his own. He raises her hands to his face, placing them over his eyes, then his own hands drift back down.

As they slowly turn, Eurydice can see edges of the room around his shoulders. The people at the tables won't see her behind Orpheus; they'll see Orpheus dancing alone, a sad, strange man. They won't see Eurydice's hands over his eyes, only the tears she can feel running from beneath them. The naked pain on his naked face.

There's a table occupied by women, a group of friends. Perhaps they attended Orpheus's latest local concert. Perhaps they followed him here, after, curious to see him in this local place of theirs; or perhaps they found him here by chance. The interest Eurydice can see in the face of one of the women curdles into disgust as she watches Orpheus now, and she looks away. Another woman just looks sad for him. Some people talk behind their hands, furtively, and others have been steadfastly ignoring him to begin with, as though they think it's the decent thing to do.

Eurydice closes her eyes, presses her cheek closer against Orpheus's back. The opinion of these people means nothing to her. Perhaps it should mean something to Orpheus, who will still be here even after she leaves. But she and Orpheus have made their own choices, and they're living with all of them.

She would like to close her hands over Orpheus's heart, nestled close to that warm, bright beating center of his life. But he wanted her hands over his eyes tonight, so she'll leave them there for this time, no more than an imaginary precaution against the consequences should he open his eyes and see her there.

Next time. Next time, she can hold her hands over his heart, for a different flavor of sorrow. There will always be a next time. As long as each of them still wants to keep coming back to this same bitter cup, the draught will always be full for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Series and story titles come from Anaïs Mitchell's song "Old-Fashioned Hat."  
> [Lyrics here.](https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/3a85e7_4bd280ebac18447eaeea5c0555dc684a.pdf)  
> [You can watch her sing it here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0FQw15RvfQ)
> 
> As always, thanks to rhythmia for the beta.


End file.
